


In the Quiet Times

by Polly_Lynn



Series: TARDIS-Verse [11]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Partners to Lovers, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 06:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11503311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: Quiet bad. It’s true for her, most of the time, and she understands why, even when she resents it. Even when she's exhausted. When her throat is thick and raw, and she thinks her head might just split open if she has to hear her own damned voice any more. She understands that quiet is a dangerous fallback. That she mistakes it for peace, even when it's the farthest thing from it.





	In the Quiet Times

**Author's Note:**

> A post-Linchpin (4 x 16) installment of the TARDIS-verse. I guess this is the 24th installment in this series, though it comes 11th in show chronology. A reminder that the series has nothing at all to do with Doctor Who. It’s not any kind of crossover, and the stories are mostly independent of one another, other than the "Time Out" conceit.

And in the laughing times we know that we are lucky   
And in the quiet times we know that we are blessed   
And we will not be alone 

— Dar Williams, "Arrival" 

* * *

 

He's gone quiet. It's a sea change somewhere between the elevator and her better-than-new car. 

He'd been companionable enough along the way. Play acting a little too hard with the little boy excitement about saving the world, maybe, but she really _doesn't_ begrudge him his coping mechanisms, whatever he thinks. Still, it's not like him to go quiet.

It worries her. It should, though it's also kind of a relief. That she's not scrambling for answers to the unanswerable. That her own questions aren't likely to creep up and out. The morbid curiosity that surfaces over and over, because she never did get the chance to ask when he offered. When she finally worked up the courage. It's a relief that it seems like the only thing she can do is keep quiet, too.

And that _really_ worries her. 

She knows what quiet means now. For her, anyway. _Quiet bad._ Burke laughs at her for that. Laughs _with_ her, he's quick to say, and she almost believes him, most of the time. But the sad truth is, she needs a lot oflessons from therapy dumbed down exactly that much. 

_Simplified._ She hears the therapist's gently chiding voice. The one that means she's managed to annoy him a little. She's managed to ruffle him, and strangely enough, there's no gold star for that. 

_Quiet bad_

It's true for her, most of the time, and she understands why, even when she resents it. Even when she's exhausted. When her throat is thick and raw, and she thinks her head might just split open if she has to hear her own damned voice any more. She understands that quiet is a dangerous fallback. That she mistakes it for peace, even when it's the farthest thing from it. 

But she has no idea what it means for him. Castle, who chatters professionally. Who's had to learn the hard way about _inside-your-head_ voice. Who, four years on, twitches and pulls faces and gestures broadly, carrying on a conversation with pretty much no one when the element of surprise might be the difference between life and death during a take down. 

But right now, he's quiet, and she has no idea what it means. Has no idea how to ask. Or even _what_ to ask. He's like a stranger, blank faced and utterly still in the passenger seat. He hasn't flipped a single switch or fiddled with even _one_ knob, despite Danberg's tantalizing mention of "upgrades" to her unit. He hasn't even rummaged through the damned glove box.

The stillness itself is strange. The hands folded in his lap. But the worst of it is how quiet he is. The eager questions have all died away. The deflections and monosyllables, even when she comes up with something—a comment, a prod, an _are you ok_ that dies in her mouth for the fifth time. The sixth. The hundredth, and he doesn't live that many blocks from the precinct. 

He's quiet. She's pulling up to the curb at his corner and that's worse still. She's at a loss when he doesn't even realize where they are. Doesn't even realize that they've stopped, and he hasn't said a thing in what feels like forever.

He's quiet, and she doesn't know what to do.

_Quiet bad_

* * *

 

He's grateful when she stops trying. Strangely grateful, when it all trails off—low-key commentary and the occasional question. Well-intentioned stabs at banter. He's grimly relieved to see the end of it, and perversely, he thinks he should say something. He should let her know he's grateful, except that's a snake eating its tail. There's no polite way to say he's grateful that she's given up. 

_Given up_

It's a leaden thought, descending, and he's sorry to have put it that way, even in the quiet confines of his own mind. 

_Quiet_

That's not quite right. The confines aren't exactly quiet, and still he's grateful for the gift of low expectations. For . . . solitude.He likes the word better. A little better. 

He steals a glance at her and wants to ask if she likes it. The word. The reality. _Solitude._ He steals a glance, and it seems obvious. He reads the answer in the tight, tense gloss of black leather gloves curled over the wheel. He reads it in the precision of her moves as she changes lanes. The swift over-the-shoulder glance and the press of the accelerator. 

He knows exactly how she feels about solitude.

It's a raw, ragged truth. Months old, but still raw, because she left him without a word. For months, she left him, and he's not nearly as over that as he should be. As he'd like to be. As he means to be. 

Ragged all over again, because he can still feel Sophia's fingers trailing down his shoulder. He can still hear her voice. His own. 

_She's different._

_Is she? Or do you just think she is?_

"We're here," he says, suddenly breaking the surface of the moment. _This_ moment. With her in solitude. "Oh." 

He turns in time to see her mouth snap shut. To see her knuckles tighten and the unhappy, downward twitch of her lips before she rights herself. Before she's carefully neutral again. Quiet.

"Here." She nods. "You'll be . . ." 

She trails off. Or maybe he interrupts. They're out of joint, and it's hard to tell. 

"Fine." He manages a smile. "I'll be fine." He tugs at the door handle, but she's just snapping the locks open and it jams on him. "Sorry—"

"—Castle—" 

She doesn't mean for his name to come out as sharply as it does. He sees that in the apologetic twist of her lips. In the hand that reaches out and falls short of his sleeve. 

"Here." 

He holds both hands up like he's surrendering. Registers too late how unwelcome an echo it is. How much it evokes the glaring, glossy white of the parking structure. He sees Sophia's blank, staring eyes. The dark spill of her hair. Time collapses. Moments collapse, and he thinks he might be sick. He thinks the dash or the solid flat of the window might rise up to meet him with force, but the locks chunk closed, then open, and he's making his getaway. 

"Thanks. For the ride. It's. . . Thanks, Beckett."

He's talking over her as he climbs out of the car. Not that she's saying anything. Not at all, but he can tell she might if he stops. She'd like to, if he'd just shut up. She absolutely will, if he doesn't get the hell out of there now, and he doesn't know how to tell her he's ok, when he really, profoundly isn't ok in ways that go well beyond blindly almost getting them both killed. 

He has no idea, so he gets the hell out of the car. 

He doesn't mean to lean back in, but she's looking more than a little shell shocked. He sees it out of the corner of his eye, and he can't help it. He leans back in through the door, holding on for dear life, and they wind up close. Too close for it not to be painful when he draws back.

"Thanks," he says again. It's worse than silence, almost, but it's all he has. "Thank you."

He slams the door behind him.

* * *

 

She watches, wordless, as he goes. She doesn't mean to let him. She certainly doesn't mean to say nothing, but it's as if his sudden flurry of half-sentences has depleted some meager stock of words they were supposed to share, and the door is slamming before she knows it. She's watching him go before all the things she should have said—meant to say, _wanted_ to say—have a chance to settle back within reach.

It's tempting to leave it at that. Seductive to stay behind the wheel till he's safe inside, as though there's nothing more for her to do butgive him the gift of time and space. It's what she'd want in his shoes.

_Fuck_

Another therapy alarm bell sounding out. Projection. It's what she _had_ wanted. What she'd taken when she knew he wouldn't give it willingly. 

She twists in her seat. Tears her gaze from the backs of her own hands and sees that he's not quite in the door yet. Slow steps and stooped shoulders, and she laughs out loud, remembering why he's a little the worse for wear.  Because on top of everything, they almost drowned not two days ago. They almost died not two _hours_ ago. And Sophia freaking Turner isn't Roy Montgomery—isn't Royce—and God knows Castle isn't her . . . 

Her inner monologue comes to a full and complete stop. Her logic—her mind—falls ominously silent. She stares after him. He's not quite beyond her line of sight, and the possibilities are overwhelming. The things she could do, ought to do, definitely shouldn't do. Absolutely must do, if this isn't going to come all unraveled. All the work they've done. 

_Well, you should have said that_

It's the bitterest thing he's ever said to her. The coldest, and for some reason, it galvanizes her. 

_You should have said that_

She hauls out her phone—the third new one in literally two days—and curses as she realizes she doesn't know how it works. She  has no idea, and he's gone by the time she figures out how to text. By the time she actually calls his number up from memory and manages to get her stupid fingers to key it in. 

He's out of sight, but she doesn't hesitate. She doesn't waste another second in typing it out. Seven letters and send. 

_Time out_

* * *

His mind goes to war the instant the phone chimes. The instant before that when it rumbles in his pocket.

He knew she would. Can't believe she did. 

He'll go, of course. Of course he won't, shouldn't. _Can't._

He'll decline graciously. Or he won't say anything all. She'll understand. She, of all people, will understand that he just fucking _can't_ right now. 

His mind goes to war, and his body grinds to a halt. He's in the revolving door. Literally stopped. Encased in glass, and the opportunistic part of his mind files it away for later. For a moment he'll mine for comedy on the page. Raley. Rook. Whoever. It's dumb, funny, striking image, and he knows he'll use it. 

But for now, he's stuck in the damned revolving door, staring down at the barely familiar phone in is hand. 

There's movement in the periphery of his vision and muffled sound. His name and light reflecting off uniform buttons polished to a high gloss. Eduardo, or whoever's on duty. 

_Mr. Castle?_

He throws a shoulder against the door before things can get worse. He revolves right past the perplexed face. Eduardo after all, with his brows drawn sharply in. He makes an offhand gesture, not really caring if it passes muster. If it will read as expected, eccentric, allowed or something else. 

He revolves right back out into the cold and tries to broker some kind of peace within. He can't say nothing. He _won't_ , even if there's a raw, wounded corner of his mind whispering that he can. That she'll live if he's quiet a while. He did, after all, it reminds him, sharp, nasty and festering. 

But he won't. It's not a real possibility. Silence. He rules it out entirely. Composes something grateful in his head. Some apology softened with the kind of joke he tells in moments like this, but it dissolves entirely when he realizes he's on the curb. He's crouching down and peering through the window as it hisses down. 

"Beckett, I . . ." He looks to the phone like the answer might be there. "I just . . . " 

"Get in, Castle." She says it gently. Firmly, and she holds his gaze, even though her own is naked and terrified. "We don't . . . We don't have to talk. Not if you don't want to. But you don't want to be alone right now.

They stare at each other, him crouched on the pavement, her hunched over the gearshift, leaning toward the passenger-side window. 

"I don't?" His reply, when it comes, is hollow enough to be a question.

"Maybe you do," she mumbles. She breaks eye contact and he imagines her cheeks flushing. Certainty deserting her, and he's distantly sorry about it. It's fleeting, though, that wavering moment, and he swears her cheeks grow darker still. He can't see in this light, but he pictures the deep pink they go when she's gotten stubborn about something, and the grit in her voice backs his imagination for once. "You probably shouldn't be, though.” She meets his eyes again. "You don't need to be."

He wonders what's making her dig her heels in. What’s making her stay when the easier course is to go. To take him at his word. He wonders if it's experience or the way she knows him talking. If she realizes she hadn't needed to be. Shouldn't have been, or maybe if he's the one mid-epiphany here, because he suddenly understands the attraction of it. Silence. Solitude. Time and space. 

He wonders whether it matters anyway. If this is about him or her or some form of them, past or future. With his fingers hooked over the open window and her steady, naked gaze on him, he thinks it doesn't. 

"I don't," he says again. Not a question this time, and his fingers go through the motions. The ritual, because it feels important to honor it, even now—like this—when they're way off script. 

_Time out_

He gets in the car. 

* * *

 

She's going nowhere at first. She's going away at speed. _Taking_ him away, as though he might change his mind. He doesn't seem inclined to. 

He's quiet still. Quiet again, but it's different now. More legible to her as he tips his head back and his eyes track the left-to-right streaks of streetlights growing longer as they roll by, faster and faster. As they leave the winding one-ways of neighborhoods for the straightaways that take them off the island. He's mostly quiet, but it's less terrible. 

"Anywhere in particular?" He rolls his head toward her, not really bothering to lift it from the seat back. 

"No." It's a reflex. She really has been going nowhere. Heading straight through traffic lights when the luck of it goes that way. Turning when it doesn't. Following the path of least resistance. She's been trying not to think about it, but landmarks suddenly assemble in her peripheral vision. In her recent memory. "Yes." 

He waits a beat. Gives her an exaggerated, expectant look, and it's a mercifully, weightlessly typical moment for them. "Gonna tell me?" 

"No." 

The corners of her mouth twitch up. The corners of his answer. 

"Sounds good," he says, and it sounds like he means it. 

It _is_ good for a while. The engine purrs as she eases off the accelerator. Asphalt gives way to gravel gives way to a narrow, rutted dirt road as they round curves and climb. The dark feels just right as the trees grow dense and the stretch between glimpses of city lights below grows longer and longer. The lightless silence feels enveloping. Comforting to her, at least. To him, or so it seems when she steals glances at him every now and then. 

They run out of road, abruptly. They come around a curve and there's no more road at all. She cuts the ignition. 

"My bike," she says, thinking out loud. Kicking herself for not thinking far enough ahead. "I usually come out here on my bike. It's not too long a ride, even with . . ." She scowls as she catches her fingers creeping up toward the scar between her breasts. "It feels . . . _away_ enough."

"It's pretty . . . " He ducks to peer up out of the windshield. They're hemmed in completely. Long-needled pines brush at the sides of the car, and naked February branches reach down from above. " . . .away, Beckett." 

He'sgiving her a sideways smile. It's a little wan, but he's teasing her. Throwing her a conversational lifeline, and the part of her that doesn't feel like an idiot is grateful. 

"There's a clearing," she says. She feels her ears getting hot. She's scrambling, trying to salvage the good. "I can ride right up to it." 

"Can we walk?" he asks, exactly one second before the silence is too much. 

"You want to _walk_?"

The fog is curling in around them. It's freezing out there. He has to know that, with one palm resting against the rapidly cooling glass. A negative image of his hand in the gathering condensation. He has to know, but he's not joking. He's clearing more of the window with his sleeve. 

"I do." He says, peering almost eagerly into the darkness. "Away sounds good." 

* * *

 

He thinks about asking where on earth they are. He's lost track of time again. Lost track of everything, though he doesn't think they can be too far out of the city, however other-worldly the mist makes everything seem. 

He thinks about asking, but it doesn't seem important. He thinks about chiding her for breaking the rules. For letting the silence between them spin out and out, but he doesn't want to tease tonight. He doesn't think she wants him to, even though the air is thick with potential. Heavy with things they probably ought to talk about, and that's how they usually do this. 

But this isn't usually. Not even for these strange forays into . . .something. Into the _them_ that will be, and she's leading him by the hand. They're side by side, then single file, then side by side with their fingers loosely linked as the path narrows and widens, and usually really doesn't seem important. It doesn't seem to apply. 

The rise comes suddenly. A hundred yards or so of a steep climb he wasn't expecting, and then they're scrambling into an open area. There's a dense arc of trees off to one side with a flat expanse filling in the curve of it. It's mostly hard, rocky ground. Not exactly inviting, but she snaps open a blanket she'd brought from the trunk and spreads it with the ease of familiarity, half over a wide boulder, half on the stretch of scrubby grass in front of it. 

She drops to the ground all at once. She wriggles her hips, settling her back against the vertical of the rock. It's a careless, _relieved_ sequence of gestures, oddly intimate, and he abruptly feels shy. Abruptly like a voyeur. 

"It's not bad." Her voice is tentative. A little defensive, maybe, and he realizes he must have been standing there a while. He must look put off or unwilling. 

"No, it's not," he says, quickly moving to join her. "Not bad." 

It's isn't. The light blanket keeps the chill of the ground at bay. He likes the sheltering sturdiness of the boulder at his back, and even the thick of trees behind them, keeping watch. Her shoulder presses against his and their fingers find their tangled way together. It's not bad at all.

She has her head tipped back. Her eyes wide open, though there's nothing to see with the thick, rolling clouds overhead that seem almost low enough to touch. He can't even tell where the moon might be, though he imagines there must be stars on a clear night. He wonders if that's the attraction. If it's a different kind of light that calls her here. Calls her away.

He means to ask. He watches her a while, and means to ask, then he doesn't. He tips his own head back and thinks blissfully of nothing. 

"This is okay?" 

Her breath is warm in his ear. Startlingly close and a little dreamy. They're propped entirely against one another now. Her arm hooked through his, winding down into the knot of their fingers. His calf hooked under her drawn-up knee and around her ankle. 

He wonders if he's been asleep. If she has, but he doesn't ask. He's not the least bit curious about anything at the moment. Where on earth they are, when she comes here. How often or why. 

"Better than okay." His lips graze the crown of her head as he nods. He presses his cheek to the softness of her hair and the truth of it breaks like moonlight through a hairline crack in the clouds. "I like the quiet." 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why Brain suddenly wanted to sandwich this in. By the same token, I don't know why Brain avoided writing one of these for a pair of episodes that certainly lend themselves to a Time Out scenario. I think because Brain, which is sometimes very rule driven, decided that it had expended its right to write about Pandora/Linchpin with "The Us in Unit Cohesion," which I wrote before the TARDIS-verse existed. Anyway. As usual, this isn't what I wanted it to be, but it's A Thing.


End file.
